


Grace is Growing Up

by ranereins (shadowintime)



Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: Angst, Community: angst_bingo, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-24
Updated: 2012-04-24
Packaged: 2017-11-04 05:39:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 749
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/390362
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shadowintime/pseuds/ranereins
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Danny couldn’t believe that Grace was already thirteen years old… it just didn’t seem possible.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Grace is Growing Up

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the 'Birthdays' square of my [Angst Bingo card](http://ranereins.livejournal.com/204030.html). Beta'd by sgflutegirl

Danny stared down at the birthday cake on the counter. He couldn’t stop reading the pink words. _Happy 13th Birthday Grace_. He couldn’t believe that she was already thirteen years old… it just didn’t seem possible. He could still clearly remember bringing her home from the hospital, all bundled up in that pink blanket with that new baby smell. Where had the time gone? It was like he blinked and suddenly she was a teenager.

He grabbed the pack of pink birthday candles off of the counter and began carefully placing them in the cake. With each candle came a memory of the year it represented.

_One…_ her first birthday they had bought her a little cake of her very own and sat it on the table top of her highchair. She giggled and gurgled at it happily. Danny and Rachel helped her blow the single candle out and Rachel helped Grace clap her hands. As soon as her little hands were free though, they were pulling apart the little cake with a sort of carefree determination to see what was inside. After finding out, she began painting herself with the cake and icing mush that she had created. Danny found some icing in her ear three days later while he was giving her a bath.

_Two…_ Grace had graduated from quickly crawling, to unsteadily walking, to walking fast, and finally to running that year. It was time to blow out the candles on her cake, but Danny had to chase her down first. She laughed manically as she led him around the couch, down the hall, into his and Rachel’s bedroom, back down the hall, into her room and dove in the middle of the ‘big girl bed’ they’d gotten her for her birthday and had been trying to keep a secret all day.

_Three…_ Grace was talking up a storm. She was telling anyone that would listen that it was her birthday. Danny wasn’t sure what she was more proud of, that it was her birthday or that she could tell everyone it was her birthday instead of her “birfday”. Rachel had been working with her, trying to get her to pronounce words correctly instead of the adorable little kid way. Danny was going to miss the cute way she pronounced things.

_Four…_ All Rachel had been talking about lately was putting Grace in school. Danny didn’t much like that idea; she was still so young. He thought the scare was over when the public schools had told them that she was too young and would have to wait until next year. Rachel just couldn’t leave it alone though, she had to go and find a school an hour’s drive away that took kids so young. So, for Grace’s fourth birthday, she got school clothes, a back pack, folders with kittens and unicorns on them… everything she could possibly need and more. By the time Grace had unwrapped all of her presents, Danny was sure he was having a heart attack.

 

Steve walked into the kitchen, bright smile on his face. “Hey babe, what’s the holdup?”

Danny shrugged a little and began putting the candles on faster. “Nothing.”

Steve walked up behind him and wrapped his arms around Danny. “Come on, what’s wrong?” He whispered against Danny’s ear.

Danny laid the candles down for a moment and relaxed into Steve’s embrace. “She’s growing up so fast.”

Steve smiled. “I know.”

“I’m losing my little girl, Steve, my Monkey.”

“No you’re not. She’s always going to be Danno’s little Monkey. Just, older and more mature.”

Danny frowned. “That’s not helping.” He picked up the candle that he’d stopped at. “You know, I didn’t even get to see her on her birthday this year. That was the year that Rachel up and moved to Hawaii.”

Steve took the candle from Danny and placed it in the cake. “That will be the only year.”

Danny shook his head. “No it won’t. Eventually she’s gonna grow up and move out, maybe far away, and I’ll stop seeing her…”

“If she moves away, we’ll go see her. As often as possible. Doesn’t matter if she moves to the moon.”

Danny smiled. “Yeah, I guess so. It wouldn’t be the same though.”

“I know.”

“I guess we could always move with her.”

Steve chuckled. “I’m not sure she’d like that. Besides, what if she moves to someplace like Texas?”

“Well, at least your stash of firearms and explosives would probably be legal there.”


End file.
